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Amy Yang earned an enthusiastic celebration on the KPMG Ladies’s PGA Championship.
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SAMMAMISH, Wash. — Golf is usually a lonely recreation. Professional golfers is usually a solitary bunch. However on Sunday afternoon, as the ultimate tee time of the day made its remaining stroll of the week up Sahalee Country Club‘s epic ending gap, greater than a dozen LPGA gamers gathered behind the inexperienced in an area between grandstands, whispering and laughing as they handed round bottles of water and prosecco. Runner-up Jin Younger Ko was amongst them; so was former World No. 1 Lydia Ko, who’d completed greater than an hour earlier. Brooke Henderson stood simply behind the group; she and Lydia had battled down the stretch eight years in the past, the final time this main championship visited this course.
It’s unusual to see this many gamers assembled for any 72nd-hole celebration. Nevertheless it’s additionally unusual to have a winner as widespread as Amy Yang, who held a three-stroke lead as she proceeded up the final. Her second shot on the par-5 flew left, the place it collided with considered one of Sahalee’s towering pines and truly stayed up in its limbs earlier than ultimately, mercifully, falling to security within the tough beside the inexperienced.
After which got here a pop.
A Lim Kim had loosened her La Marca a bit of early; the cork flew onto the again of the 18th inexperienced and tumbled onto the perimeter. She coated her mouth together with her hand, laughing on the blunder, after which dashed across the fringe of the inexperienced, the place she scooped up the cork to applause from the amphitheater crowd.
The celebration was on.
This week marked Yang’s 75th major championship start. The 34-year-old has been an LPGA professional for half her life and has had shut calls at majors all through; she entered the week with 21 top-10s and 12 top-fives. Final yr, she added a pair of T4s to her resume. She’d been shut sufficient to know she may win — but in addition shut sufficient to understand how powerful it might be. Throughout her tenure on tour, she’s develop into widespread with gamers and caddies, and they also queued up behind the inexperienced as a result of they believed she deserved it and since they wished it for her, too, in addition to her caddie, Jan Meierling.
All through Sunday’s finale, doubt lurked on the fringe of her thoughts. She’d admitted earlier within the week that she’d began to wonder if she’d ever win a significant earlier than she retired. And he or she’d admitted her primary motivation for nonetheless competing was to get her identify on a significant championship trophy. However that doubt was gone by the point she discovered the inexperienced in three. A chip and two putts later, the champagne-sprayers stormed the inexperienced, dousing Yang. She resisted for a split-second after which raised her arms overhead, welcoming the second.
“I lastly did it,” she’d say later. “And it’s superb.”
YANG WASTED NO TIME constructing on her two-shot result in start the day. She was nervous as she performed No. 1, she mentioned, however channeled these nerves right into a near-perfect strategy shot on the par-4, organising a two-footer for birdie to make the lead three.
It wouldn’t keep that simple. Enjoying companions Lauren Hartlage and Miyu Yamashita birdied No. 2 after which Yang bogeyed No. 3; instantly the lead was again to at least one. Main champions loomed not far behind; Jin Younger Ko and Lilia Vu have been holding regular inside 4. A final-round brawl appeared to be within the offing.
Yang’s lead got here below additional risk on the par-3 fifth when Yamashita stuffed her tee shot to 12 ft and she or he hit a gust and got here up nicely wanting the placing floor. However then Yang offered the spotlight of the day, hitting an ideal chip that died within the left half of the outlet for a birdie two. All week she’d had one of the best brief recreation within the discipline; this was a becoming approach to emphasize that.
That was as shut as her rivals would get; Yamashita doubled the brutal eighth whereas Hartlage doubled 7 and eight whereas Yang fired her strategy to seven ft and made the putt for birdie. An hour later, Yang had added birdies at 11 and 13 whereas her closest rivals had continued to fall prey to Sahalee’s many pitfalls; her lead swelled to seven. The rout was on.
Yang did her greatest to maintain issues attention-grabbing down the stretch by lacking a three-footer for par at No. 16 and by discovering the water at No. 17 en path to double bogey. However she’d constructed such a bonus that not even these may harm. The successful margin didn’t matter; all that mattered was her new title: main champ.
After the spherical, Yang was requested how this modifications the way in which she sees her profession.
“I considered this out on the golf course as we speak, that golf is de facto similar to, a battle towards myself,” she mentioned. “I feel I proved myself that I can compete and I can do that. Yeah, so was a very good studying week.”
She was requested what she loves about golf and once more gave a poignant reply.
“The imperfection, this recreation,” she mentioned. “We do one of the best we will. Some days, golf feels really easy and feels so enjoyable; different days, it seems like I need to retire very quickly.”
On Saturday night time, when she was requested what a significant win would imply, her thoughts went to those that’d impressed her.
“I imply, I grew up watching so many nice gamers previously, and I noticed all of them successful main championships,” she mentioned. “I dreamed about taking part in out right here due to them.”
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Requested for a selected participant who’d impressed her, she cited South Korean legend Seri Park, whose profession included 5 majors, together with three Ladies’s PGAs.
On Sunday, she was requested how actuality measured as much as her goals.
“I’m attempting to course of that proper now,” she mentioned with a pause. And as she paused she glanced to her left on the trophy, and smiled.
“I see Seri’s identify proper there, 1998,” she mentioned.
Now Yang’s is there, too, just a few rows farther down. Just a few years from now, maybe there will likely be one other golfer who provides her identify who watched Yang’s dominant Sunday at Sahalee. Maybe a golfer who’d waited behind the inexperienced with glowing wine. Maybe a younger golfer-in-training, a part of the group nonetheless ready outdoors the press tent as Yang completed her remarks. This had been, she mentioned, one of the best crowd ever.
“It’s been one of the best followers. It’s been unbelievable all this week. Everybody was rooting for me. I need to go signal some autographs for them. I’d wish to thank them,” she mentioned.
The sensation was mutual.
